In many different industries, there is a need to protect data (information) from discovery. Oftentimes, the data is resident within the discrete electronic components of an integrated circuit. In turn, the integrated circuit may be incorporated into a printed circuit board, a smart card or other electronic device. The data itself may be of a wide variety depending upon the particular industry. As examples, the data may be used in: monetary transactions (debit card, postage metering, etc.) and controlled access systems (security badges). Furthermore, the data may be cryptographic keys, account balances, some combination of these or any other type of data that is to be protected.
Because of the risks of fraud and security breaches, there is a great deal of industry attention dedicated to securing the data from tampering and/or preventing access to the discrete components of the integrated circuit. Generally, such measures are directed to both physical security (epoxy enclosures, sealed devices) and electronic security, such as: encryption, data protection devices and the like. Although these techniques generally work well, they can be costly to develop, reduce to practice and implement into production.
Therefore, there is a need for a cost effective and efficient system for detecting unauthorized attempts to access an integrated circuit so as to prevent the data contained within or operation of the integrated circuit from being tampered with.